Pushing The Limits
Accounts of people whose exploits and explorations pushed them to the limits of endurance
Accounts of people whose exploits and explorations over the 20th Century pushed them to the limit of their endurance.
The American pilot Fay Gillis Wells remembers her friend and fellow aviator, Amelia Earhart. Amelia vanished somewhere over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 whilst attempting to become the first woman to fly around the world.
Peter Hull was born with no hands and no legs. From the age of 10 he began to swim competitively and went on to be selected for the British Paralympics swimming team. He describes the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona in Spain as his proudest moment: he won three gold medals for swimming and broke three world records.
The New Zealander, AJ Hackett, is famous for popularising bungee jumping - jumping off high structures attached only to a rubber cord. Mr Hackett has jumped himself into the record books a number of times, such as jumping off the 164 metre Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand.
In 1997 Sue and Victoria Riches took up the challenge of being part of the world's first all female expedition to walk to the North Pole. Mother and daughter talk about what motivated them to join the team and of the high and low points of their long trek across the ice.
Underwater diver Don Walsh is the only person alive to have visited the deepest place in the ocean. In 1960 he and a colleague descended the sea depths in a specially designed mini submarine. The went down nearly 11km (seven miles) to the Challenger Deep near the Pacific island of Guam. He describes being on the sea floor as like being in a bowl of milk.
